


carry me slowly, my sunlight

by regularturtle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Caduceus Clay-centric, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I think I'll just tag them when I upload that, big changes being made to what I had been planning to write, chapter 2 is delayed but don't worry I WILL write it, the rest of the nein will be in the second chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularturtle/pseuds/regularturtle
Summary: “We’ve come this far. We can’t — we have to finish this.”Fjord stared at him, his eyes conveying countless emotions at once — worry, guilt, admiration, respect. Then he nodded, and hovered Dwueth’var over the earth once more.“Well,” he gulped, clearly trying to keep his voice as steady as possible, “let’s perform a miracle.”In which the Wildmother's followers aren't quite done saving the Savalirwood just yet.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Fjord
Comments: 17
Kudos: 43





	carry me slowly, my sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sunlight by Hozier, my favorite song!
> 
> Chapter 1 is much more platonic, but ~~I'm probably gonna make Fjorclay more clearly there in Chapter 2~~ EDIT: in light of recent events, there will no longer be fjorclay because I love our aro/ace king
> 
> I've been working on this for a couple weeks and it was originally going to be just one chapter, but then I realized I'm already at over 2000 words, so I figured I'd split it into two! Plus, maybe having the first chapter up will motivate me to actually finish it....
> 
> I'm sort of imagining Molaesmyr as being like the apocalypse in the game Overland. I don't want to spoil the game too much but basically, things get worse before suddenly getting much... quieter. Also, I'm trying to keep Molaesmyr purposefully vague, since I know if/when Matt ever describes it my description will be wrong!

“Hey, Caduceus, we’re almost there.”

Caduceus forced his heavy eyelids open to a shadowy blur of graying violet, with a splotch of green right in the middle of his field of vision. He blinked, the image coalescing into that of a curtain of blighted vines, and Fjord crouched directly in front of him.

The past few… hours? Maybe? The past indistinct amount of time was a haze. He could vaguely remember the two of them splitting off from the rest of the group, Fjord hauling him back to his feet as the others shouted that they would hold off the blighted monstrosity that had attacked them. They had stumbled deeper into the collapsing city of Molaesmyr, Fjord having to support him more and more as the Savalirwood’s blight spread feverishly under his skin — and then at some point his memory faded out.

Somehow they’d gotten to where he was now sitting on the ground, propped up against an overgrown building. Somehow they’d almost reached the source of the blight.

The light level was close to twilight, had been ever since they got within proximity of Molaesmyr. They were out in the open air, the sky somewhere above them, but the shadows closed in enough overhead that it wasn’t visible. Caduceus managed to pull enough magical energy together to cast a spell — Light. Firbolgs lacked darkvision, after all, which hadn’t been an issue when Fjord was essentially dragging him through the overgrown ruins. But now, so close to their destination, he wanted to get a good look at everything around him. 

Light began to radiate from his staff's crystal as he lifted it with his arm that wasn't bound in a sling. Even considering his weakened state, it was dimmer than it should have been. He had never ventured anywhere near this far into the Savalirwood before — his parents had forbidden it when he was younger, and later on it was too dangerous to go alone — but he had heard of this phenomenon. He’d even seen it happen, albeit to a smaller degree. The decay infecting the region seemed to draw in the light itself. Even so, it was enough to brighten a small area around him.

Fjord must have changed his bandages at some point, he realized as he craned his neck to look at his right arm. He could still see the blight slowly advancing beneath the torn fabric of his shirt, tinting his veins the same graying purple as the overgrowth around them, but the gauze wrapped around his bicep and shoulder was free of any blood. The wound had seemed innocuous at the time — the blight monster had rammed into him, knocking him dazed to the ground, its claws leaving a deep slash. He’d had many such wounds before, and he _did_ have healing magic, so it hadn't been too concerning at the time. But then it refused to heal, and then they noticed the color spreading, and it became harder and harder for him to keep moving, and, well…

Well. They would just have to reach the center of the ruins before anything happened that couldn’t be reversed.

Caduceus held his staff up a bit higher and shivered involuntarily as he took in the plant life around him, all of it seeming to radiate from a point deep within the wood. It was unnatural, the way it was clearly alive, and yet decaying at the same time. The remains of a campfire smoldered a few feet away — had they stopped overnight, then? Or just an extended rest?

“‘Duceus?”

He turned back to Fjord, who was now standing with a hand held out towards him.

“Yeah. Sorry, I was just… Thinking. Let’s go.”

Caduceus put his staff on his back and clasped his left hand around Fjord’s, although if he was being honest, it was far more of Fjord grabbing onto him than the other way around. He stumbled as he was pulled upright, almost tipping back over, but a pair of hands quickly reached up and stabilized him.

“You alright?”

“I mean,” he said with a meek grin as he weakly shrugged his bandaged shoulder, “as much as I can be.”

Fjord coughed, seemingly trying to hide a nervous laugh of his own. “Well. Good. Let’s keep moving, then.” His eyes flicked back down to the wound, following the course the blight was taking with furrowed brows, before patting him on the opposite shoulder and letting him go. The paladin slid an arm under his, and they slowly continued on their path.

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Fjord said after a moment, “It’s reassuring that you were doing that. Thinking. Seemed like you were… pretty out of it, for a while.”

He kind of still felt out of it, really, if just a bit less than before. He had seen the way the blight had infected the wildlife around the Blooming Grove, and he was actively trying _not_ to think about how that was affecting him — panicking really would do nothing to help the situation right now. His family had never observed the blight’s effect on living creatures other than the bone-spurred beasts lurking in the woods, as far as he knew. He supposed that was another experience had was gaining from his time adventuring out in the world, he thought wryly.

Oh. He should probably respond.

“Yeah,” he said lamely. _Well, at least it’s a response._

The two of them continued on like that for a while, slowly picking their way over crumbling cobbles interspersed with purple-gray vines and occasionally making conversation. There wasn’t really much to talk about, other than their hopes that the rest of the Nein were safe, or Fjord’s periodic check-ins on Caduceus’s ever deteriorating wellbeing.

It was strange how the deeper they seemed to go into the city, the _less_ dangerous it became. They saw no creatures as vicious as the one they had left the rest of the Mighty Nein with; in fact, they saw almost no creatures at all. There were some unnaturally large beetles crawling over fallen trees, eerily silent birds perched on rotting windowsills, other small animals tinted the same sickly color as the blight, all of them seemingly docile. Every living thing seemed to grow more languid as the sense of decay grew stronger, every sound of nature seemed to fade into the haze of the diseased wood.

And eventually, they came to a halt.

Before them was a tangle of vines, much larger than any they had passed by previously. It spilled out of the center of a crumbling ruin, the stone walls almost completely eroded by time, pulled apart by infected roots, and there was a palpable energy exuding from it — sick, poisoned, necrotic energy.

He felt physically ill just looking at it. More so than he did already, at least. And judging from Fjord’s troubled expression, he could feel it, too.

“You have the crystal?”

Fjord jolted in surprise, his attention completely held by the source of the blight. Caduceus understood — it was awe-inspiring, in a way, how this fount had infected an entire region. Had infected his _home._ And now, they were in a position to heal it.

“Yes, let me just…” Fjord pulled out the Bag of Holding and began rifling through it. He pulled out a large crystal, identical to those used to protect the Blooming Grove, except this one was larger than his head. Then, with his other hand, he summoned the Star Razor, and held both out to Caduceus with a question in his eyes: _Are you ready?_

Caduceus nodded, even though Fjord hadn’t actually said anything. He held his hand out to receive the crystal first —

But he wasn’t expecting it to _burn._ It felt like every ounce of the blight in his body was screaming out, shying away from their divine power and tearing his veins apart in the process. The crystal clattered to the cobblestones beneath him, and he crumpled to his knees.

 _”What happened?”_ The Star Razor vanished from Fjord's grasp as he fell to his knees as well, holding Caduceus up as his body threatened to collapse completely. His hands felt soothingly cool on his fevered skin, and Caduceus leaned into the touch as Fjord drew his sweat-dampened hair out of his face.

“It’s —“ He blinked rapidly, forcing the gray out of the edges of his vision and slowing down his gasping breaths. He wasn’t about to cave in now, not when they were so close. “The blight. It — I can feel it reacting to the — it _hurts.” Hurt_ was a bit of an understatement, but it was hard for his fever-addled brain to pull words together right now.

 _”Shit.”_ Fjord’s eyes widened, a look of dismay on his face. “So you can’t — you can’t touch the crystal. Or the sword, probably. You can’t do the ritual.”

“I can try again —“

“No. _No._ We’re not — it _hurt_ you. Caduceus, I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified right now. Of this,” Fjord said, gesturing to the darkened veins that now spanned much of his body, a pained expression on his face. “And I — we can’t lose you. Not when we’ve come so far.”

And suddenly, unexpectedly, Caduceus felt a flash of _anger._ It was something he allowed himself to feel so rarely that he almost didn’t recognize it, but he could feel it, almost as hot as the blight-induced fever. He didn’t want to be _lost_ to the blight, of course — but if it came down to it, it wasn’t his choice to make. He had to save the Savalirwood, no matter the sacrifices he may have to make. How could Fjord not understand that?

"Well, we can't just _leave,"_ he retorted. "I have to —"

_Wait._

_Unless there was another option._

“You do the ritual.”

“What?” Fjord’s mouth hung agape for a moment, then he shook his head. “But — the Wildmother sent _you_ visions about this. Sure, I could help you get here, but — you’re meant to do this. You’ve been following her for longer than I’ve been _alive._ I don’t have anywhere near enough power for this.”

Caduceus pushed the end his staff into a crack between the stones underneath him for leverage. He fumbled for a moment before staggering back to his feet, grunting from the exertion. “Then I’ll help you.” His eyes roamed the clearing, searching for a suitable spot — _there._ A small patch of weeds with what appeared to have once been benches on either side, fallen to pieces after many years of neglect. Centuries ago, this may have been a garden.

He started ambling over to the site, moving slowly and leaning heavily against his staff. Fjord stood still for a moment, frozen in place, before rushing to catch up with Caduceus, and the two of them sat down.

The earth was dry and cracked, crumbling to dust in his fingers as Caduceus dug into it. Fjord joined him, and soon enough they had a sizable hole, large enough to fit the crystal.

Caduceus sat back as Fjord placed the crystal into the depression in the ground. Even from a few feet away, he could feel the heat radiating out of it, but Fjord, placing both hands directly on the crystal, appeared to feel nothing.

He could hardly tell that Fjord was saying anything, but his lips were moving in near-silent prayer. Caduceus silently thanked his past self for already explaining the ritual he had been shown in his dreams; he wasn't sure if he would've had the energy to explain everything now. Fjord's eyes, having been closed for the duration, suddenly opened, a faint green glow coming off before quickly dissipating. And just as suddenly, the crystal began to glow with a soft pink light.

“So now we...” Fjord glanced up at him for confirmation, a few strands of hair falling over his face. It was longer now than it had been when they had met — so much time had passed since he’d left his home for the first time, asked to help save a group of people he had never even met. A group of people who had now become like a second family to him, which he never would have believed if they had told him at the time.

“We bury it.” Caduceus lifted some of the dirt in his hands, and the two began smoothing it back over. At one point he hissed as a finger accidentally brushed over the surface of the crystal, the _wrongness_ flowing through him causing him to recoil. Soon enough, though, the only sign that they had done anything to the ground was the lack of dried weeds over that small area.

Fjord stood, reaching down to help Caduceus back to his feet as well. Once the two of them were situated on either side of the burial site, Fjord held out a hand and summoned his sword.

 _Dwueth’var._ Centuries ago, it had been sundered in this very city. And now, it would be used to restore it.

Caduceus cracked a smile at the half-orc standing across from him. “Honestly, we should have known that you were meant to do this ritual. The sword was meant for you — still is.”

Fjord returned his grin for a moment, but it turned into a pensive frown as he looked down at the blade in his grasp. “This is it.” He held the Star Razor over where the crystal was buried, but then, hesitating, dropped his arm back to his side. “The blight,” he said as his gaze met Caduceus’s, “should end after we do this. If things go according to plan. What will that mean for you?”

 _Ah, there it is._ Caduceus had been doing _so well_ at avoiding such thoughts, but he supposed it was inevitable that it would come up now. Best case scenario...

“Hopefully, it will cure me, too.”

And worse case scenario...

“Or it kills you,” Fjord says, his voice almost at a whisper. “People aren’t meant to be infected by this. It’s... _unnatural._ What if — what if you can’t handle it?”

“Well, I’ve handled it so far,” Caduceus said, neither of them mentioning how close he was to toppling over. How he had been out of it for hours at a time earlier, how his breathing was still coming much too quickly for his liking. How the violet spreading in a fractal-like pattern over his skin was now visible over the collar of his shirt, crawling up the base of his neck.

He closed his eyes, took as deep a breath as he could, and opened them again. “We’ll just have to pray the Wildmother protects us both.”

“And if it’s beyond her power?” Fjord asked. “Not to underestimate her," he said with a wince, "but this blight has been beyond her control thus far.”

“We’ve come this far. We can’t — we have to finish this.”

Fjord stared at him, his eyes conveying countless emotions at once — worry, guilt, admiration, respect. Then he nodded, and hovered Dwueth’var over the earth once more.

“Well,” he gulped, clearly trying to keep his voice as steady as possible, “let’s perform a miracle.”

Two things happened at once.

First, Fjord, Paladin of the Wildmother, plunged the Star Razor into the ground. It sank in like it were cutting through snow, instead of through hardened soil.

Second, Caduceus Clay prayed to the goddess he had belonged to since before he was born, and he called down a divine intervention.

A beam of clean white light erupted from the sword, extending up into the sky above and bathing everything around them in its radiance. The darkness that had shrouded them since they entered the deepest part of the Savalirwood was chased away by the divine light of the sword forged together by Melora and Sehanine themselves, reforged by the Mighty Nein.

A shockwave rang out from the eruption, throwing Caduceus backwards. He fell onto his back, his staff clattering to the ground and rolling out of reach, but that was the least bothersome thing right now.

The burning heat he had felt earlier at the mere touch of the sacred crystal was doubled, tripled, amplified countless times by the ritual cast over it and the sword thrust into it. But while before he could feel the blight screaming, flinching away from the divine energy, this time it felt more like it was being seared away, cleansed.

He felt soft loam against his back now, not the withered soil that had been there just seconds before. Through increasingly blurry vision, he could see the sky beginning to clear overhead, the shadows melting away to show a bright, sunny sky. Wildflowers began poking up around him, tickling his hands as he finally let unconsciousness take him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! If you’ve been following this fic or you’re just reading it for the first time now, I have a bit of an update. I was planning on updating this by the end of the year (which it is now as I’m editing this note — happy New Years Eve!), but right now I don’t really see a way forward with this fic as it is now. I fully intended for it to be shippy, and there is zero chance I’ll still make it that because I love and respect our aroace firbolg! So I think I’ve kinda written myself into a corner and I can’t really move forward with chapter 2 with the way I set it up.
> 
> That being said, all hope is not lost! I have a couple WIPs I’m trying to bang out first, but I think I might rewrite this and make it lead better into a second chapter. It’ll probably be a while, but I do plan on finishing this! So keep an eye out for an update — I’ll probably just completely repost this rewritten chapter + chapter 2 at the same time. :)


End file.
